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Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

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Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#21

Post by glodalitazic »

jraph wrote: post #6
behringer wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just another step towards Ubuntu or another proper linux distro to take over the phone space.

Ubuntu actually pioneered the domain with Ubuntu Phone, and then abandoned it. It's been taken over by UBPorts, a community effort, with Lomiri for it's graphical environment. I don't know these much, as I think they don't let you run regular Linux apps. There are many linux mobile distributions, I think the most mature / widespread ones are Mobian, PostmarketOS and Manjaro. And UBPorts of course. Mobian has been ups…

SailfishOS is totally usable. It is not as open as some others, but they get more stuff to work

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#22

Post by CrampusDestrus »

crote wrote: post #17
hans_castorp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are open source alternatives available (e.g. on F-Droid). So I don't see why this is such a big issue.

Would you call Windows "open source" just because you run a few open source apps on it? Google is slowly but surely turning more and more components of Android into closed source code. This is a targeted effort to kill AOSP and lock consumers into their ecosystem. The end result will probably look a lot like macOS: a few open source parts, but primarily a proprietary stack.

Windows is not open source, AOSP is

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#23

Post by charcircuit »

crote wrote: post #17
hans_castorp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are open source alternatives available (e.g. on F-Droid). So I don't see why this is such a big issue.

Would you call Windows "open source" just because you run a few open source apps on it? Google is slowly but surely turning more and more components of Android into closed source code. This is a targeted effort to kill AOSP and lock consumers into their ecosystem. The end result will probably look a lot like macOS: a few open source parts, but primarily a proprietary stack.

If the bootloader, all of the services, the kernel, the window manager, etc were open source, but edge was closed source and bundled in a separate version of Windows then yes I would consider Windows an open source operating system.

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#24

Post by gostsamo »

charcircuit wrote: post #16
jraph wrote: post #3

This is the kind of shit I thought could theoretically happen and it was one of the reason I got rid of Android a few years ago and got a PinePhone when my smartphone died. I've been counting on the Linux mobile ecosystem to develop so we have an good alternative to Android and iOS. It's not there yet. I need my phone to be reliable and IMHO, it would need to reliably let me place an emergency call if I ever needed i…

The Pinephone can suffer from the same issue where people maintaining the software included may decide they no longer want to maintain their software anymore. It's no different for this. Either someone needs to step up to mountain it or you replace it with something else. Wanting to get rid of the rest of Android just because dialer and messenger are no longer maintained is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Pinephone has multiple compatible os-s, while most android phones don't have alternatives and become unusable if android drops support for them. Also, Google and the big OEM-s have the incentive to break compatibility to provide you with the newest gadget, which is not true for the pines. yet.

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#25

Post by 0xedd »

charcircuit wrote: post #16
jraph wrote: post #3

This is the kind of shit I thought could theoretically happen and it was one of the reason I got rid of Android a few years ago and got a PinePhone when my smartphone died. I've been counting on the Linux mobile ecosystem to develop so we have an good alternative to Android and iOS. It's not there yet. I need my phone to be reliable and IMHO, it would need to reliably let me place an emergency call if I ever needed i…

The Pinephone can suffer from the same issue where people maintaining the software included may decide they no longer want to maintain their software anymore. It's no different for this. Either someone needs to step up to mountain it or you replace it with something else. Wanting to get rid of the rest of Android just because dialer and messenger are no longer maintained is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

The difference is one is planned. Google promotes dependency on their services. There are alternatives to gapps. There are also alternatives to paved roads. The problem is they add more hoops to jump through. They care about the 99 percentile. Those won't keep chasing said hoops.

While large orgs help maintain relevant FOSS, to them, AOSP is left to rot. In our case, several k employees, we have teams dedicated to relevant FOSS tools. My wife, at a startup, have 20% paid worktime a week to contribute to whatever they want.

Your analogy, at face value, makes sense. Adding a few more lenses to the analysis weakens it severely.

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#26

Post by charcircuit »

gostsamo wrote: post #24
charcircuit wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Pinephone can suffer from the same issue where people maintaining the software included may decide they no longer want to maintain their software anymore. It's no different for this. Either someone needs to step up to mountain it or you replace it with something else. Wanting to get rid of the rest of Android just because dialer and messenger are no longer maintained is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Pinephone has multiple compatible os-s, while most android phones don't have alternatives and become unusable if android drops support for them. Also, Google and the big OEM-s have the incentive to break compatibility to provide you with the newest gadget, which is not true for the pines. yet.

Plenty of android phones have alternatives. It's what custom roms in the title of this article is referring to.

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#27

Post by 0xedd »

charcircuit wrote: post #23
crote wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you call Windows "open source" just because you run a few open source apps on it? Google is slowly but surely turning more and more components of Android into closed source code. This is a targeted effort to kill AOSP and lock consumers into their ecosystem. The end result will probably look a lot like macOS: a few open source parts, but primarily a proprietary stack.

If the bootloader, all of the services, the kernel, the window manager, etc were open source, but edge was closed source and bundled in a separate version of Windows then yes I would consider Windows an open source operating system.

Because the desktop OS is used for so much more. But if the core functionality is missing, the point is lost. A better analogy, as you like to play games, is a VPN company releasing their app as open source, after being critiqued for privacy issues. Only to find out just the GUI was released but the rest can be installed using a plugin system.

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#28

Post by pmontra »

jraph wrote: post #3

This is the kind of shit I thought could theoretically happen and it was one of the reason I got rid of Android a few years ago and got a PinePhone when my smartphone died. I've been counting on the Linux mobile ecosystem to develop so we have an good alternative to Android and iOS. It's not there yet. I need my phone to be reliable and IMHO, it would need to reliably let me place an emergency call if I ever needed i…

There are no real alternatives. I'm installing apps on a factory reset Samsung A40 from 2019. The last ones of all the process are banking apps, github (only because they decided I need 2FA (*)) and a digital identity one for my country, basically another 2FA. I really don't have an alternative for them. In theory I could leave an Android phone in a drawer at home for those apps, use WhatsApp web on the Pine, maybe Telegram desktop, maybe Gnome maps or Google Maps web, but I'm not paying for two devices.

And the PinePhone Pro is a brick: 160.8mm x 76.6mm x 11.1mm and 215 grams. I'm looking at the 11.1 mm and the 215 grams. Granted, 200 grams is becoming worryingly normal for the new flagships but it's still a brick and those flagships are bricks too. I'm not buying something like that. If they want me to go around with 200 grams in my pocket they pay me. The A40 is 140 grams. I'm afraid there won't be alternatives for that in a few years too, and I don't buy stuff from Apple or one of the old SEs would be a solution until they will also grow big and fat.

(*) I'm also not logging in into GitHub since they forced me on 2FA, because of the extra pass. I currently don't need it for my job and I don't have to open issues to open source projects. The first time I'll have to I'll count to ten and see what to do.

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#29

Post by BLKNSLVR »

I wonder what the overlap is between people who put custom ROMs on their phones and those who use their phones to make actual phone calls more than once a week.

I think I made my weekly phone call a couple of days ago, only because my ISP doesn't allow cancellations via email.

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